Gender Similarities in the Mathematical Performance of Early School-Age Children

Ana Escudero (), Oliva Lago Mᵃ and Cristina Dopico
Additional contact information
Ana Escudero: Department of Research and Psychology in Education, Faculty of Education, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Oliva Lago Mᵃ: Department of Research and Psychology in Education, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28223 Madrid, Spain
Cristina Dopico: Department of Research and Psychology in Education, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28223 Madrid, Spain

Mathematics, 2022, vol. 10, issue 17, 1-24

Abstract: The role of gender in mathematical abilities has caught the interest of researchers for several decades; however, their findings are not conclusive yet. Recently the need to explore its influence on the development of some foundational mathematic skills has been highlighted. Thus, the current study examined whether gender differentially affects young children’s performance in several basic numeracy skills, using a complex developmentally appropriate assessment that included not only standard curriculum-based measures, but also a non-routine task which required abstract thinking. Further, 136 children (68 girls) aged 6 to 8 years old completed: (a) the third edition of the standardized Test of Early Mathematical Ability (TEMA-3) to measure their mathematical knowledge; (b) the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT), and (c) a non-routine counting detection task where children watched several characters performing different counts, had to judge their correctness, and justify their answers. Furthermore, frequentist and Bayesian analyses were combined to quantify the evidence of the null (gender similarities) and the alternative (gender differences) hypothesis. The overall results indicated the irrelevance or non-existence of gender differences in most of the measures used, including children’s performance in the non-routine counting task. This would support the gender similarity hypothesis in the basic numerical skills assessed.

Keywords: gender; gender similarities hypothesis; early mathematical ability; counting; non-routine task; detection task; pseudoerrors; Bayesian analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/17/3094/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/17/3094/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:10:y:2022:i:17:p:3094-:d:899905

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().